Episode 42: The Last Day

Quote of the podcast: “In two episodes, the producers have rendered the majority of the season useless.” -Moi

In this episode, characters disagree only for character a to repeat the same idea character b had, Elena hijacks Bonnie’s entire motivation thereby sending me into a curse-filed tizzy, Matt helps the man who killed his sister, and I explain the root of my lack of interest in Forwood.

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12 thoughts on “Episode 42: The Last Day”

Re: Spoilers; I wonder what that means. It would be interesting if she meant that she doesn’t know what’s going on with everyone (Stefan going off the rails with Klaus), as well, it could be interesting if it’s about her magic and not about people not telling her things. Another consequence of bringing Jeremy back, maybe?

– Elena doesn’t even get turned into a vampire.

– Greta/Klaus! Before she died I created a ton of backstory/ship canon for them.

– “The only vampire he knows, is himself.” Lol.

– Relax your face! Carol really should have broken something.

– Why are the witches capable of saving my favorites? They should stop! Ugh no why didn’t Bonnie save Elena’s life? That’s how the fandom will go.

– It’s my headcanon that witches have powers specific to them, not solely within their power, but heightened to them.

– What espionage? Of course Matt now believes in Caroline. All of that happened off-screen though. This story is such a huge foul-up. At this point, I still had hope, when Matt was like “Why don’t we go after Damon and Stefan?” If the writers had decided to run the Matt finds out storyline alongside the Tyler’s a werewolf storyline, still having him decide to “forget” about what he knows (but he voices a reason that has less to do with being unable to look at Caroline and more to do with being unable to deal with the fact that all of his friends are liars) then the Caroline/Tyler/Matt triangle could have, if they wanted to go there, highlighted all of them at once. The differences in the relationship Caroline had with the both of them. Matt coming to the slow realization that Caroline was in fact not soulless and Tyler coming to appreciate her as a friend. Caroline growing in her confidence, not taking shit from either of them, maybe reading Matt’s awkwardness and Tyler’s…whatever and dealing with it that way. Tyler and Matt could have interacted, Tyler knowing and believing that Matt didn’t know and how that changed his relationship with both Caroline and Matt. And so on and so forth. The triangle, as it is, is less about the three relationships than it is about…who will Caroline makeout with and ignoring the fact that Matt and Tyler were ever best friends.

– My anger at Matt shooting Maddox is like the fire of a thousand burning suns. Like a thousand burning suns. Why couldn’t they have just let him be depressed and hiding in his home and drunk or something? Or even just depressingly cold towards everyone because they knew how his sister died and he trusted them? That would have at least been consistent with how he reacted to Tyler making out with his mom. So much wasted potential.

– Caroline apologized for being upset that she was tortured and Tyler was a part of it. That’s a huge problem.

– Wasn’t the sun up when Damon found Tyler and Caroline? This show doesn’t understand pacing at all.

– Stefan is a mother hen. He frets a lot.

– Because the producers are dumb. Because why not invalidate an already largely repetitive season by negating the curse and making shit up to fix our previous mistakes. Sounds good to me.

– Is she still supernatural? She’s not even as active a supernatural as Dawn was on Buffy. Elena may as well be a glitter decorated blood bag.

– Yup. Stefan is all about shaping himself around people’s expectations which involves lying and basically shaping any information about himself around their expectations.

– Damon is, gross and disgusting behavior aside, pretty on point in this episode when it comes to how dumb Elena’s plan is and how dumb Stefan is for going along with it.

– Elena usurping Bonnie’s motivation reminds me of how Merlin fandom tends to ignore that despite Morgana’s magic a lot of her actions are selfishly motivated and shaped around what she wants, even when she wants to kill Uther after Gwen’s father is killed, it’s about her own grief regarding her father. Gwen on the other hand is more of a “woman of the people” but people tend to ignore that because her power and scope aren’t as large as Morgana’s.

– Elena’s great plan to save the world wasn’t even a plan. Her plan was to die, breaking the curse and not having to deal, with whether Klaus dies or not.

– Klaus should have killed Alaric.

– I am amused by the idea of Stefan hating Alaric. I hope that becomes canon.

– Why would Elena tell Stefan to stop? Why is she ready to forgive him already?

This entire scene is incredibly fucked up all around. I’m pretty sure Stefan goes on auto-pilot when he apologizes.

– There is a pile of blood bags lying right next to Stefan and he’s drinking more, so unless some of the blood bags in the finale were scattered somewhere else, there’s really no explanation for why they effected him so much.

– It’s weird that none of them were scared of Klaus. Especially, Alaric.

– Stefan would give Elena his ring.

– The scene where Stefan and Elena were parted was lame to me the first time around. I just could not enjoy it.

That’s what I’m thinking. Pretending the writers actually pay attention to wording, Bonnie did say that there would be consequenceS. Plural. I’d love it if this was her personal consequence. The ghosts being back affect her love life but affect Jeremy in a more personal way. I’d love it if this was her personal consequence.

– It’s my headcanon that witches have powers specific to them, not solely within their power, but heightened to them.

What do you mean by that last part?

The triangle, as it is, is less about the three relationships than it is about…who will Caroline makeout with and ignoring the fact that Matt and Tyler were ever best friends.

Yes, yes, yes. And now I’m imagining Tyler and Matt interacting at Elena’s party but it’s “awkward” because of nothing else than how they both feel about Caroline. I wonder what convoluted reason will have Matt not only being okay with being involved with the supernatural (that, I get) but wanting to be with Caroline. Again.

– My anger at Matt shooting Maddox is like the fire of a thousand burning suns. Like a thousand burning suns. Why couldn’t they have just let him be depressed and hiding in his home and drunk or something? Or even just depressingly cold towards everyone because they knew how his sister died and he trusted them? That would have at least been consistent with how he reacted to Tyler making out with his mom. So much wasted potential.

If the sole purpose was to have Matt involved in that whole “were!Tyler is chasing us, thing,” all they had to do was have Matt go to Tyler’s house to visit him. If Caroline could “hear” that Mayor Lockwood is in the hospital, then so could Matt, and he’d go see Carol, and she’d tell him Tyler is back, and Matt would go see him. There. Sorted.

– Wasn’t the sun up when Damon found Tyler and Caroline? This show doesn’t understand pacing at all.

For real!

Elena may as well be a glitter decorated blood bag.

Lol! Wouldn’t it be eye-rollingly awesome if being sacrificed ended Elena’s status as a supernatural entity and she was back to being human. The upside is that the humans would be prioritized again, and we’d get stuff for Matt and Jeremy.

– I am amused by the idea of Stefan hating Alaric. I hope that becomes canon.

I guess I mean, that any witch could potentially be capable of having psychic dreams/causing fires/binding spells/certain forms of protection but the power to do so would be heightened in certain witches. Bonnie is more likely to have physic dreams, but she could potentially be capable of calling upon that power outside of the dream setting. Greta is capable of incredibly powerful binding spells and that is a power that stretches beyond protective circles and allows her to be able to slow down Jules’s transformation. Maddox can transfer Klaus’s soul into Alaric and possibly control Alaric’s soul’s reaction to that, stretches into him being able to get Carol to say what he wants her to say about her accident.

So Greta/Bonnie/Maddox could be capable of the prophetic dreams/binding spells/spiritual/psychological manipulation(?), but not to the same level of effectiveness as the witch or warlock we see regularly wielding that sort of power, if they were capable of it at all.

Lol! Wouldn’t it be eye-rollingly awesome if being sacrificed ended Elena’s status as a supernatural entity and she was back to being human. The upside is that the humans would be prioritized again, and we’d get stuff for Matt and Jeremy.

Yes! Let her be human again. I wouldn’t even care if it was a retcon of a retconned moment. Her status as a supernatural being is useless because she’s passive even her “strength” is rendered passive in the face of all these white dudes.

This ep and the following two are possibly the worst hours of television I have ever watched. Not only did the story not make sense (the elixir, no one discussing the ring before this, Elijah etc) but the writers were also casually offensive (rape imagery with Delena). These eps also made it clear to me that these writers really have lots of trouble balancing the different POVs on the show. They can’t effectively write Elena’s POV vs. Bonnie’s POV vs. Damon’s POV vs. Stefan’s POV etc etc. That is why many characters are absent for long stretches of time. And also why a lot of important developments happen offscreen. Furthermore, when they are concentrating on a character like Damon, for example, they only think about what is “right” for this particular character. They don’t give a thought to what the other characters’ responses will be or how the first character’s connection to other characters affects their storyline. In this case, Bonnie *should* have reacted to that disgusting Delena scene but it never happened. The only response they allowed her was fixing it with John’s help.

Also, they will have a general train of thought going on for one character, and then, at some point, everyone uses a *different* character in that storyline. Like, one writer 1 week will use a certain character to start that train of thought, and then the next writer, who has nothing to do with the first writer, apparently, uses another character in that same train of thought. In this case, it was Elena picking up Bonnie’s motivation. Another example, imo, is how the whole season was a slow build to Damon trying to stay in control but losing more and more control. Was there a pay off in the finale for that? No. Instead, *Stefan* was the one who went batshit even though that is inconsistent with what they told us previously about Stefan. They showed us Stefan being able to handle drinking from blood bags. There was no indication what so ever that he was having trouble handling the “rehab” program he and Elena worked out for him, The following is how I see a lot of the storylines.

Damon is losing control -> Stefan is Ripper now
Bonnie talks to dead witches -> Jeremy is now seeing dead vampires
Caroline just got turned into a vamp -> lets obsess about how hard it is for Tyler to be a werewolf
And then send him out of town IMMEDIATELY. Hate

And let’s not forget that whole Matt/Caroline/Liz so called storyline that went nowhere fast.

I mean, at this point it’s not even worth considering that any character will get a proper arc. They obviously won’t. Not one has. It doesn’t even seem like anyone responsible for the show cares about that. And then the writers come on and talk about how they’re “showcasing” somebody.

Another example, imo, is how the whole season was a slow build to Damon trying to stay in control but losing more and more control. Was there a pay off in the finale for that? No. Instead, *Stefan* was the one who went batshit even though that is inconsistent with what they told us previously about Stefan. They showed us Stefan being able to handle drinking from blood bags. There was no indication what so ever that he was having trouble handling the “rehab” program he and Elena worked out for him,

This is actually very true. And your first point is absolutely on point. The season finale is like a case study in how the producers can’t balance the different POVs and only focus on what’s right for Damon.

Spoilers: I always laugh at the “She‘ll be dead in three episodes, bet!”

I’ll let you have your moment, Alta. 😉 “Scroll by really fast!” lol

Greta! Ship away, Alta. Ship away.

Klaus was unprepared because the writers/producers weren’t. Michael Trevino’s face is very sharp. This cheek bones. I agree about Carol’s fall I thought she was going to be on a respirator when we saw her. Maybe the gave her vamp blood so she wouldn’t be too bad off, but that fall … :[

The witches probably have magical traits/accents passed down through their family. Lol Maddox smile. I thought the fall was really bad because her hip slammed into the banister. :[

Caroline is a stalker. I don’t know how Caroline could compel another person after what Damon did to her. Because it’s pretty much the same only she’s not having sex with Matt and she has “Feelings for him.”

I don’t like that Liz sent Matt to be with her vampire daughter who she thinks is evil. You can’t recruit a child and make them you spy.

Caroline is nervous because of Tyler. ;P *eye roll*

I’m listening to this whole thing with my hand over my eyes.

I’m snorting on the Caroline being in control thing. Why are they making Caroline brush off her torture by saying she was only “hurt”? if it wasn’t going to be that bad, by torture her so violently?

I think the faster change is natural. Like once you work a muscle it’s easier to keep working it. Tyler’s body change is probably more ready that it was the first time.

They’ve (the producers) mapped out the whole season. *snort*

Wow! Anytime any witch/warlock magic comes up it immediately gets shunt away. No on believes in it. And it’s kinda like when people don’t recognize “primitive religions” in the face of Christianity or Judaism. They call it heathenism or paganism and it’s not recognized as real, but they will borrow (steal) thing from the heathens’ learning and claim them for their own. Saying they came up with it or they made it better. So many hidden layers on this show. It should be studied.

I don’ think Elena being supernatural will ever be brought up again unless it’s convenient for the plot. It’s not like she’s a fairy … except she kind of is. Everybody want’s her vagina.

Why don’t they use the ring and elixir and attack Klaus early?

Lol Elena’s instincts. … that is a creepy line. ;x

Elena is not stopping anything! She is enabling Klaus to kill everybody. Plus she was willing to not only sacrifice herself but a werewolf and blah blah vampire. Flawed!

*hugs Alta*

They go out of their way to spare Alaric even when he gets painted into a corner. I wish Alaric would have said something about Andie, but the show tried to go for a weak laugh. NO.

Damn. Jeremy is better for Bonnie than Damon. Jeremy is more mature/secure than Damon. Wow. Revelation.

“Really, Damon like you did?” whoa!

I really hate how they right all of this!

Bless Elijah.

JUST KILL DAMON! Word. Klaus is all talk.

“When everyone thought Bonnie would die, they sent her to a basement in a haunted house.” DAMN

I don’t know how Caroline could compel another person after what Damon did to her. Because it’s pretty much the same only she’s not having sex with Matt and she has “Feelings for him.”

I think it’s different because Matt actually asked to be compelled. Even when she compelled him the first time it was different because she didn’t go on to repeatedly abuse him.

I never thought of the sketchiness of Liz having Matt spy on Caroline either. She thinks Caroline is a monster with no soul and no humanity. And she throws Matt at her.

And it’s kinda like when people don’t recognize “primitive religions” in the face of Christianity or Judaism. They call it heathenism or paganism and it’s not recognized as real, but they will borrow (steal) thing from the heathens’ learning and claim them for their own. Saying they came up with it or they made it better. So many hidden layers on this show. It should be studied.